Duking It Out On Tuesday Control Of Senate Could Go Either Way

November 2, 1986|By Jim Nesbitt and Chris Reidy of The Sentinel Staff

WASHINGTON — With the election just days away, the crucial battle for control of the U.S. Senate has boiled down to two essentials: the shrinking coattails of a popular, lame-duck president, and the local concerns of 34 states with Senate seats up for grabs.

President Reagan, trying to keep his party's razor-thin Senate majority intact for the final two years of his term, last week started a 10-state blitz where GOP incumbents face tough challenges.

Again and again, Reagan placed his personal popularity on the line, trying to inject a national theme into a series of disjointed contests and striving to convince people that a vote cast for the Republican incumbent is a vote cast for him.

''You know, my name will never appear on a ballot again,'' Reagan said Tuesday at a Columbus, Ga., rally for Sen. Mack Mattingly, the Georgia rookie incumbent. ''But if you'd like to vote for me one more time, you can do so by voting for Mack.''

The president's vigorous schedule was spurred, in part, by the sudden evaporation of healthy leads by GOP incumbents, most notably in three key Southern states -- North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.

Republican incumbents in at least half a dozen other states, including Florida, are also on shaky ground. The parties appear likely to split six open Senate seats, including Missouri and Louisiana.

The chances of picking up a majority of these seats suggest the potential of a Democratic surge that could go beyond simply erasing the GOP's 53 to 47 lead. By winning a simple majority, the Democrats would regain control of the Senate's all-important committee chairmanships and could advance the starting date for Reagan's lame-duck status.

Democratic strategists credit a combination of factors for their rejuvenation -- superior candidates, economic woes, gaffes by GOP incumbents and poor showings on the stump or in recent debates.

They also say Reagan hasn't been able to transfer his popularity to embattled Republican senators or provide a theme to the season's Senate races. ''There are no overriding issues,'' said Diane Dewhirst, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Senatorial Committee. ''There are 34 races, which will be won or lost within state borders.''

Republican strategists disagree. They say Reagan can mean a two to four percentage point difference in tossup races. But polling results in Alabama and Georgia suggest a different scenario.

Independent pollsters say Reagan's impact on the Senate races in those states is diluted by his absence from the top of the ticket despite his repeated visits to areas where GOP senators are in trouble.

In a poll taken in the wake of Reagan's visit to Birmingham last Tuesday and a rally for Sen. Jeremiah Denton, Davis found that 72 percent of the state's voters say the president's presence will have no impact on their choice in the Senate race.

''That doesn't mean they don't like President Reagan,'' Davis said. ''They love him. But it does mean the coattails aren't there.''

That same poll shows Denton trailing Democratic challenger, Rep. Richard Shelby, by a single percentage point, 45 to 46. A separate poll by the Birmingham Post-Herald has Denton ahead by six percentage points -- exactly where state Republican strategists say he'll finish on Election Day.

But in midsummer Denton led by 20 points in some polls. The former Vietnam War POW also commanded 25 percent of the state's black vote, a windfall from Shelby's opposition to the Martin Luther King holiday and other stands blacks found unfriendly. The Davis poll found Denton has managed to keep only 14 percent of the black vote. White voters are also moving toward Shelby.

Similar polling results cropped up last week in North Carolina and Georgia. In Georgia, where Mattingly once enjoyed an 18-point lead, Democratic Rep. Wyche Fowler, an Atlanta liberal who has done a masterly job of portraying himself as a good old boy, now trails by only three points, 47 to 44.

Strategists on both sides credit Fowler's surge to a gutsy showing in a debate with Mattingly two weeks ago. He was able to run rhetorical rings around the lackluster Mattingly and punch through the crust of effective advertising mounted by the incumbent.

In North Carolina former Gov. Terry Sanford leads GOP Sen. Jim Broyhill, the veteran congressman appointed to fill the term of John East, who committed suicide in June.

Like Fowler and Shelby, Sanford trailed the Republican incumbent well into the fall campaign season, but surged because of superior stumping ability and Broyhill's negative campaigning.